Intel: Atom’s replacement will lead to $200 touch laptops

Intel’s Bay Trail chips are coming, and Intel CEO Paul Otellini is supremely confident that they’re going to spark a revolution in touch computing. He’s predicting that super-thin, touch-equipped laptops will see a massive price drop — all the way down to the $200 mark.

Otellini didn’t mention a specific date by which this is going to happen, which makes his bet a little bit safer. Yes, one day there will be $200 laptops with touchscreens. Right now, however, about the least expensive model you’ll find is the 11.6-inch Asus Vivobook (pictured). It sells for $549 at big box stores.

Will Bay Trail alone be enough to drive that price down $350? Of course not. And certainly not by the holidays, which is what some are saying Otellini meant. Surely Intel’s CEO isn’t that brazen? Then again, he didn’t really specify what “touch-equipped” means.

While it’s tempting to assume that he meant laptops with touchscreens, he could just as easily have been referring to multitouch trackpads — which already ship in low-end, Atom-powered laptops.

Could a company like Asus churn out a $200 laptop with a Bay Trail chip? Sure, why not? There were plenty of netbooks built in that price range, and if you’re counting today’s trackpads as a qualifier for the “touch equipped” label then, yes, holiday season 2013 is a possibility.

But that sounds like a step backward for OEMs — at a time when most seem to be trying to distance themselves from computers with razor-thin profit margins. If Bay Trail can deliver solid performance at a price that competes with, say, an ARM processor, then who knows? Maybe Intel can convince a few of its partners that there’s still money to be made in the bargain basement.